Leila Aboulela
1) Lyrics Alley
Author
Language
English
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Description
From the author of the New York Times Notable Book, The Translator: a novel of the “rich and complex world of a Sudanese patriarch in the 1950s” (Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress).
Lyrics Alley is the evocative story of an affluent Sudanese family shaken by the shifting powers in their country and the near-tragedy that threatens the legacy they’ve built for decades.
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Lyrics Alley is the evocative story of an affluent Sudanese family shaken by the shifting powers in their country and the near-tragedy that threatens the legacy they’ve built for decades.
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Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"In River Spirit, Aboulela gives us the unforgettable story of a people who--against the odds and for a brief time--gained independence from foreign rule through their willpower, subterfuge, and sacrifice. When Akuany and her brother Bol are orphaned in a village raid in South Sudan, they're taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As a revolutionary leader rises to...
3) Bird summons
Author
Language
English
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Description
"When Salma, Moni, and Iman-friends and active members of their local Muslim Women's group-decide to take a road trip together to the Scottish Highlands, they leave behind lives often dominated by obligation, frustrated desire, and dull predictability. Each wants something more out of life, but fears the cost of taking it. Salma is successful and happily married, but tempted to risk it all when she's contacted by her first love back in Egypt; Moni...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Since her award-winning debut novel, Minaret, Leila Aboulela has been praised by J.M. Coetzee, Ali Smith, Aminatta Forna, and Anthony Marra among others for her rich and nuanced depictions of Islamic spiritual and political life. Her latest collection, Elsewhere, Home, draws us ineluctably into the lives of immigrants at home and abroad as they forge new identities and reshape old ones. A young woman's encounter with a former classmate elicits painful...
5) Minaret
Author
Language
English
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Description
"With her Muslim hijab, with her down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich Arab families whose houses she cleans in London. Twenty years earlier, Najwa, then an aristocratic Westernized Sudanese, could have never imagined this new life. She was a student at the University of Khartoum, but her focus in life was on fashionable clothes, pop music, and parties. When a political coup forces Najwa's family into exile in London,...
Author
Language
English
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Description
A New York Times Notable Book: “Aboulela’s lovely, brief story encompasses worlds of melancholy and gulfs between cultures” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
American readers were introduced to the award-winning Sudanese author Leila Aboulela with Minaret, a delicate tale of a privileged young African Muslim woman adjusting to her new life as a maid in London. Now, for the first time in North...
American readers were introduced to the award-winning Sudanese author Leila Aboulela with Minaret, a delicate tale of a privileged young African Muslim woman adjusting to her new life as a maid in London. Now, for the first time in North...
8) River Spirit
Author
Language
English
Description
When Akuany and her brother Bol are orphaned in a village raid in South Sudan, they're taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them, a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. As a revolutionary leader rises to power—the self-proclaimed Mahdi, prophesied redeemer of Islam—Sudan begins to slip from the grasp of Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side. A scholar of the Qur'an, Yaseen feels beholden...
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English
Formats
Description
From established literary heavyweights to emerging spoken word artists, the writers in this ground-breaking collection blow away the narrow image of the 'Muslim Woman'. Hear from users of Islamic Tinder, a disenchanted Maulana working as a TV chat show host and a plastic surgeon blackmailed by MI6. Follow the career of an actress with Middle-Eastern heritage whose dreams of playing a ghostbuster spiral into repeat castings as a jihadi bride. Among...
Author
Language
English
Description
One of The Millions Most Anticipated Books for Spring!
Featured in Alta Magazine's Top Books for May!
Short stories from 25 emerging and established writers of Middle Eastern and North African origins, a unique collection of voices and viewpoints that illuminate life in the global Arab/Muslim world.
"Provocative and subtle, nuanced and surprising, these stories demonstrate how this complicated
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